Alan Cumming looks back on his various mutations

We asked Alan Cumming — the star of the new CBS legal drama Instinct — to look back on the roles that have defined his long and eclectic career.

Scotland-born Cumming, 53, has fond memories of shooting this coming-of-age movie with Minnie Driver in the Irish countryside — even though his character, Sean, was as icky as you could get. “He was pretty slimy. He had this inhalation of breath, which was so creepy. I did Emma with Gwyneth Paltrow shortly thereafter and I remember Brad Pitt talking to me about how that awful scene was where I’m about to attack Minnie. I did this funny little laugh with a slimy giggle.”

Thanks to his showstopping dance number with Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino, Cumming is constantly approached by fans wanting to talk about his experience playing millionaire Sandy Frink, who carried a torch for Michele (Kudrow). “People watch it several times a week — there are weekly parties! It’s funny because I don’t know the film that well. I’ve seen it a couple of times in my life, but I haven’t watched it for many years. This one time I was at someone’s house and they put the film on. Everybody was mouthing the words and looking at me. I had no recollection of ever saying those things. People got annoyed.”

Cumming was waiting to begin production on Eyes Wide Shut when he got the out-of-the-blue request to play an English documentarian named Piers in the musical comedy that starred the Fab Five. “Geri Halliwell had seen me play Hamlet. That was the reason they wanted me to be in their film. I wanted to get T-shirts that said, ‘Ginger Spice saw my Hamlet.’ I did back-to-back films with Stanley Kubrick and the Spice Girls.”

Playing the anti-hero Fegan Floop in this kiddie action-adventure was one of the more rewarding experiences for Cumming. “That film hasn’t aged. Kids still watch it. It’s a lovely thing to be a part of peoples’ lives. Young people in bars come up to me. I’m like, ‘What is this going to be about now?’ And all of sudden they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re Floop!’ I was a magical part of their childhood.”

Cumming wasn’t a fan of the genre when he was approached about playing the infamous X-Men character Nightcrawler. “I thought that was a positive thing. I had nothing to compare it to, and nothing to live up to in my mind. But at the beginning when I would tell friends I was going to be offered the part of this superhero who’s green, people would say, ‘no he’s blue!’ I really had no idea.”

Cumming likes to have fun whenever anyone approaches him about his time playing Billie Blaikie on the Showtime drama about lesbian buddies. “Every time anyone ever says they saw me on The L Word, I say, ‘Oh you saw me getting f—ed up the ass by a lesbian with a strap-on.’ That’s all anyone remembers of me, which is quite a shocking thing. That was the apex of my character arc.”

As campaign strategist Eli Gold, Cumming was a huge fan favorite. But he was ready to say goodbye to the drama that earned him three Emmy nominations but sadly, no wins. “I really enjoyed him but I’m quite sanguine about these things. Everyone has an obsession in America to run things into the ground rather than just allowing them to end. I’m glad it ended the way it did.”

In the original movie and subsequent sequel, Cumming voiced a “butch little Scottish ruffian” named Gutsy. “The good thing is they let me do a lot of Scottish ad-libbing. There’s a Scottish word I gave him — numpty. It’s very old and hardly anyone ever uses it. So Gutsy Smirf calls everyone numpty. I brought back numpty to the lexicon.”

Cumming was one of an extraordinary trio of performers who sang for a special musical episode of the Nick Jr. animated show. He played a white rabbit. “It was me, Mel Brooks, and Jewel together, at last. You can’t pass up an opportunity like that.”

After forging a friendship with Kudrow during Romy and Michele, Cumming recurred on her comedy as a media mogul. “I think Lisa is a genius. After watching the show [online], I wrote to her and said, ‘Oh my God this is so hilarious.’ So she asked me if I wanted to be in it and I said yes. The same thing happened with this Vimeo show called The Outs [a 2012 series in which he played himself]. I called to say I liked it. I guess its always nice to say you like things. I’d love to be in Star Wars.”

In his first starring role in primetime, Cumming plays Dr. Dylan Reinhart, a former CIA operative turned beloved university professor whose book about serial killers is used as a how-to guide for a deranged killer. “I really like that he has so many disparate qualities — fuddy-duddy professor, a former CIA agent who drives a motorbike who’s also a dandy, who’s also gay,” says Cumming. “And he kicks ass!”